Mazin Qumsiyeh
A Palestinian who also happens to carry an American passport, questions how any American Jew is able to pick his bags and arrive in Occupied Palestine to live in Bethlehem while he, who was born there, cannot even enter it.
I am a Palestinian from the Bethlehem area who also happens to hold a US passport. The latter does not allow me to enter Jerusalem and the US government will not protect this or other rights I have (including family reunification). Meanwhile, any Jewish American can come and get automatic citizenship and live on stolen Palestinian land in our city. It is hard to describe the level of frustration I had watching the theater of media frenzy about Obama’s visit to Palestine under Zionist occupation.
Obama gave a new lifeline to war and conflict by avoiding human rights and International Law. It is the missing ingredient that for the past 65 years has precluded peaceful resolution. It is the twisted logic that says the insecurity of the thief must be the only issue to be dealt with by ensuring the victims first recognize the legitimacy of the theft and the legitimacy of the need for the thief to first have full security and immunity from accountability for the theft before the victim is put in the room with the armed thief so that they can work out something (vague and without reference to International Law). That formula has been shown to be a disaster and has kept apartheid and colonization going.
Israel has no incentive to allow a Palestinian sovereign state, let alone redress the injustice (e.g. refugees, theft of land and resources, etc.), as long as it continues to get an unconditional check from our tax money and guaranteed veto of the US at the UN, protecting it from International Law. This plus over $12 billion in profits from the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (captive market, natural resources, etc.) ensures the occupation continues. But Israeli and American governments are thinking short term. Long term, the changingreality (in the Arab world) and demographics in Palestine will ensure change.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
via email
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